Thanks, Bank of America! – watch more funny videos
Sanitized Zuccotti Park
Compare to my video'ed walk-through three weeks ago: More pictures of Zuccoti Park today.
Zuccotti Park Vacated; Occupy Wall Street Over (Temporarily)
Here's how it went down in the wee hours this morning in lower Manhattan: When it became clear that the police intended to clear out the park, the protesters got on their phones and called friends. But police had blocked off about 16 sq blocks or so, completely surrounding the park. People responding to the calls were stopped by … Read More
That Word Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means
Seems some right-wingers have an axe to grind with Elizabeth Warren, running to unseat Scott Brown as Massachusetts Senator. Their complaint? She's rich. Elizabeth Warren may have embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement and the “99 percent” crowd, but public records reveal the liberal firebrand belongs to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. Her financial well-being will likely hand conservatives … Read More
Poll Of The Day
Election 2012 between Obama and Whoever will (as everyone says) turn on issues of the economy and jobs, rather than foreign policy. No president since Roosevelt has been re-elected with such dismal unemployment numbers. Obama's tactic will be to say to the American people, "Look, I've tried to get bills passed that will help stimulate the economy and put people back … Read More
BofA Caves
CNN tells about Bank of America's decision: "In response to customer concerns and the changing competitive marketplace, Bank of America no longer intends to implement a debit usage fee," the company said in a statement. "We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” said David … Read More
Jesus And The OWS Movement
I've read some pretty bone-headed criticisms of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and laughed them off as mostly misinformed. But nothing — NOTHING — comes close to the recent piece by Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issue Analysis as the American Family Association. This is a glorious example of meathead-ary. Writing in Rightly Concerned, Fischer argues that the Occupy Wall Street protesters … Read More
1%
I saw a headline in which Michael Moore admits he is in the 1% (the top 1% of income-earners in this country). Of course, he's within the 1% in monetary terms only. He's with us 99 percenters in every other respect. "Wait", I thought. "Just how do you know what percent you are?" Ah, thank you Wall Street Journal. I'm … Read More
A Good Chart ‘Splains A Lot
Okay, follow me on this. It's not too difficult. We all know that there has been overall economic growth in the past two decades. But the complaint of the OWS movement it that overall economic growth does not raise all boats of the economic stratosphere. Conservatives, on the other hand, will try to tell you that because of trickle-down economics, when … Read More
Not Just Warren Buffet
WSJ reports: A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income. Fully 61% of those with net worths of $5 million or more support the tax on million-plus earners. So the lower and middle AND wealthiest classes all support a … Read More
On The Other Hand….
My praise of the OWS site still stands, but it's this kind of nonsensical infighting – tension growing between those who want to bang their drum all day (literally) and everybody else — that's going to make OWS a bit of a laughing stock. Where do I come down on this? Well, when I visited, the drumming circles weren't playing. Drumming … Read More
Zombies Pump $5 Billion Into The Economy
Not the zombies themselves, mind you. I suspect that zombies spend very little cash. But zombie things add $5 billion to the economy, according to the website 24/7 Wall Street. They explain: Think way beyond zombie movie ticket sales. Think about DVD sales, video games, comic books, novels, Halloween costumes, zombie walks, merchandise, conventions and even zombie art. Add to … Read More
I’m Down With OWS (Yeah, You Know Me)
I was in NYC this past weekend, and decided to visit the folks at Occupy Wall Street to see for myself what it was all about. First of all, although I used to work in that area of Manhatten, it's been almost ten years since I've been in that part of the city. The last time I went was in … Read More
The Demographics of OWS: Guess What? A Lot Have Jobs And A Good Income
Turns out, they are not made up of what you think: Business analyst Harrison Schultz and professor Hector R. Cordero-Guzman from the Baruch College School of Public Affairs, today released a study based on a survey of 1,619 visitors to theoccupywallst.org site on October 5. And about a quarter of them have also attended occupation events. So they aren't all armchair … Read More
How’s Bank of America Doing?
Yesterday, I wrote about Bank of America's chutzpah in seeking to add a $5 monthly fee for use of the Bank of America debit card. Sadly, BofA wasn't the only big bank contemplating this fee; there is evidence of a possible illegal collusion of big banks to charge customers new fees, just for the convenience of using their debit cards to spend … Read More